How Much is that Workplace Grudge Costing you?

ByAccord Services, 7th Mar 2017

“Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die”.

If you are holding on to a grudge at work, you are likely to be placing your health at risk, decreasing your productivity, increasing your stress and increasing the amount of negative emotions you are experiencing.

How does this help you succeed at work? How does this help you to enjoy your work?

Is the grudge worth the price of failing at work and experiencing pain?

Does being right become more important than your health and your career?

Over the last twenty years’ evidence has highlighted the positive impact of forgiveness. Now a very recent study supports the power of forgiveness to improve well-being and productivity in professional settings.

This research is important for employers and employees, as lack of forgiveness negatively affects the individuals involved and the organisations they work for.

Holding on to negative feelings after a workplace conflict can lead to disengagement, lack of co-operation and aggressive behaviour. Carrying a grudge is also associated with increased stress and negative emotions such as anger and hostility.

Fostering forgiveness will make you smarter and will help your health and your career.

Smart employers will encourage and model forgiveness at work.

Bit like being a parent really.

But how do you do it???
Here are some tips to foster forgiveness at work:

Model forgiveness at work, especially if you are a leader. The person having the greatest impact on an organisation’s culture, is the leader.

Apologise. Take responsibilities for your mistakes, failure to do so will feed distrust.

Use interventions. Bring in a third party to help resolve conflicts. Use an external party to build an understanding of forgiveness, and to teach evidence based tools for forgiveness.

Unite through a collective goal. Create new memories based on co-operation, especially if you can show how the new project contributes to the greater good of the community.

Subscribe Today

If you'd like to get regular updates and insights on managing staff subscribe to our email newsletter.

Testimonials

“Accord Services helped us restructure our business and avoided us creating problems later down the track. Their advice was invaluable every step of the way.”Jodee Dyball, Human Resource Manager, Triodent Ltd